,PAY,    OCTOBER   3 


Soul 

===== 

A  POET  OF 
IRISH 

Francis  Ledwidge  and  His ' 
sage  from  Ireland 


By  N.  J.  O'C. 

THE    recent   death    of    Fram 
widge    has    brought    to    tht 
of  many  readers   the  work 
latest  of  Irish  p<  ;     'to  achie  ' 
tinction.     The  death  of  -ai  poets 

rebellion  of  1916  caused  ,          iber  of  i 
in    Amer    •>.    to    imagin  Ireland 

lost  her         >most  repr  =>s   of  -' 

but  it   ,  ot   until   1-  that  t  ', 

fell,    fig  f0r    worl  ^    in 

ranks    o  Royal    In  Fusil; 

the  Irij  rno  mor.  »he 

;nt  i  won  fc 

ilace  in  •  incjde, 

.or.s.      ",  v,e    Fj 

:o    the    '  ]OV 

L^dwidt  dea 

more  th  tht 

•rs.     H  tro 

>y  Lon  ,  v 

o  "Son.  ;,  • 

'hich   ht  '[.0 

f  Peace. 

l.edwi  .•  u    , 

rlsh   lar.  .niln. 

the  poet  v 

han  tha 
edgre-'-'    . 


Francis  Ledwidge 


uthor  of  "(Songs  of  the  Fields."  (  Duffield.) 


WE  ON  ,,     101G. 


SONGS 
OF 
THE 
FIELDS 


^ 


, 

Ml, 


the  or- 


4 

j  \VIDGE. 


Son?  iwid?o: 

unsa 


vv.iic-h    miri 

\vhieli     on  hat 


SONGS    OF 
THE  FIELDS 

BY 

FRANCIS   LEDWIDGE 

WITH      AN      INTRODUCTION 

BY   LORD    DUNSANY 


NEW   YORK 
DUFFIELD   &   COMPANY 

1916 


Pot'^ Dcath 

sat  in  Mitchell  Kennerley's  office  in 
New  York  and  read  in  the  daily  papers 
the  news  of  the  death  of  Francis  Led- 
widge,  the  dulcet  Irish  poet  of  royal 
Meath,  and  the  noble  and  tender  tribute 
paid  him  by  Lord  Dunsany,  the  Irish 
genius  who  alone  challenges  the  su- 
premacy of  Synge  in  Celtic  literature. 
This  was  on  an  early  day  in  August. 
Ledwidge  was  killed  at  the  front,  some- 
where in  France,  on  July  31st.  Reach- 
ing the  MIRROR  office  I  found  the  Lon- 
don papers,  among  them  the  Saturday 
Review  of  July  7th,  and  there  I  came 
upon  the  following: 

A  HAUNTED  HOUSE. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Saturday 
Review: 

B.E.F,  20  June  1917. 
Sir, — A  few  weeks  ago  we  were 
resting  in  a  little  village  which  had 
the  reputation  of  a  haunted  house. 
I  made  several  attempts  to  extract 
from  the  owner  a  little  informa- 
tion concerning  his  ghostly  tenant, 
but  each  time  he  was  visibly  pain- 
ed and  warned  me  severely  against 
impetuous  (?)  steps.  I  was  de- 
termined to  see  it  through,  how- 
ever, by  sleeping  in  the  place  for  a 
night.  I  had  some  difficulty  in 
forcing  an  entry,  but  eventually 
succeeded  in  getting  through  a 
window  as  the  village  clock  told 
eleven  hours  p.  m.  I  lit  my  pipe, 
spread  my  ground  sheet  on  the 
clay  floor  and  nestled  down  in  my 
great-coat.  I  was  tired  and  must 
have  fallen  asleep  almost  imme- 
diately. On  a  sudden  I  was 
awakened  by  a  noise  like  a  rush- 
ing of  wings  or  falling  water,  and 
a  voice  which  I  had  heard  before, 
once  in  London  and  once  in  Man- 
chester, a  familiar  voice,  distinct- 
•  ly  called  my  name.  Then  silence 
fell  for  a  few  minutes,  only  to  be 
broken  by  a  similar  noise  and,  this 
time,  footsteps,  such  as  are  heard 


TO 

MY   MOTHER 

THE    FIRST   SINGER    I    KNEW 


Lord  Motley's  Biography 


By  Shan  F.  Bullock. 

"LONDON,  Aug.  27.— I  have  long  ex- 
pected  the  announcement,  now  authori- 
tatively made,  that  Lord  Morley's  auto- 
biography will  be  published  soon,  both 
here  and  in  America.,  by  the  Macmillan 
Company.  The  book  will  have  the 
modest,  and  therefore  characteristic, 
title  of  "Reminiscences."  It  will  be  in 
two  large  volumes  and  it  is  thought 
will  equal  in  length,  and  certainly  in 
importance,  the  famous  life  of  Glad- 
stone, now  in  its  scores  of  editions  to- 
taling hundreds  of  thousands  of  copies. 
Thru  his  political  action  at  the  out- 
break of  war,  or  just  before  it,  Morley 
has  been  in  complete  retirement.  I  can- 
not recall  an  utterance  by  him  since 
then  that  has  been  given  publicity. 
Those  who  know  him  well  have  seen 
him  often  traveling  on  the  underground 
from  Wimbledon,  a  frail,  time-beaten, 
preoccupied  old  man,  somewhat  shab- 
bily dressed,  wearing  an  old  silk  hat,  a 
muffler  and  an  overcoat  with  its  collar 
half  turn'ed  up.  Not  long  ago  I  saw 
him  standing  pa.tiently  and  unrecog- 
nized in  a  queue  at  the  guichet  of  a 
booking  office.  He  took  a  wrong  ticket, 
evidently.  For  the  alert  young  woman 
at  the  platform  gate  refused  to  let  him 
pass,  and  he  had  to  shuffle  back  to  the 
guichet  and  explain  to  the  clerk— just 
as  you  or  I  might.  He  had  a  look  of 
one  obsessed  by  thought,  preoccupied  — 
not  there,  you  might  say.  Yet  his  look 
ting,  was 

distinction— and  none  the  less 
because  of  its  old-fashioned  air.  We 
expect  to  find  in  Morley's  book  not 
only  recollections  but  revelations.  His 
-  been  full.  He  worked  to  pre- 
eminence in  politics,  literature  and  jour- 

"llonest  John.*' 

m  In  politics  he  never  falsified  the 
of  Honest  John  given  him  by  his 


countrymen.  Many  of  them  doubtlei 
wish  that  he  could  have  backed  h 
country  in  the  great  day  of  decisioi 
Maybe  he  did.  Anyhow,  no  carping  a< 
cusations  have  vexed  his  three  years  ( 
peace.  And  we  hope — nay,  believ< 
some  of  us— that  toward  the  close  c 
volume  2  of  "Reminiscences"  he  wi 
abundantly  justify  the  closing  publi 
act  of  a  man  who  still  goes  by  th 
name  of  Honest  John. 

I  wonder  whether  the  name  of  Frar 
cis  Ledwidge  is  known  in  America.  H 
was  a.n  Irish  poet,  discovered  by  the 
enthusiastic  literary  man  Lord  Dur 
eany,  in  the  Village  of  Slane,  sorm 
where  near  Tara,  and  by  him  encoui 
aged  and  helped.  He  was  born  a  la 
borer.  He  earned  a  shilling  a  day  i 
his  youth.  He  did  scavenging.  At  las 
he  rose  to  be  a  road  surveyor,  a  distric 
councilor — and  a  poet  who,  in  the  esti 
mation  of  Lord  Dunsany,  "would  hav 
surpassed  even  Burris  ...  as  th 
greatest  of  peasant  singers."  A  sma! 
volume  of  his  boyish  verses  has  bee 
published.  A  second  is  in  the  press 
Both  of  these  give  evidence  of  extraor 
dinary  accomplishment  and  great  prom 
ise.  What  you  miss  most  is  what  som 
call  the  Celtic  glamour  and  others  cal 
Irish  moonshine.  The  verses  are  i 
English  and  in  the  English  tradition  o 
Wordsworth  and  Burns  and  Herrich 
Only  the  work  of  a  boy  born  to  th 
glories  of  beauty  in  himself  and  al 
about  him.  He  was  a  fervent  national 
1st.  But  whtn  th-  he  an 

swered.  He  served  in  the  immorta 
Irish  brigade  at  Gallipoli,  went  thru  th 
awful  retreat  in  Serbia,  died  a.t  the  ag. 
of  25  in  France  on  July  31.  Keep  hi, 
.name  green.  Francis  Ledwidge,  poe 
and  corporal. 

\\-.->  ., ..„  -,  *»„.,„  ^.Ji^B^M^M 


A  HAUNTED  HOUSE. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Saturday 
Review: 

B.E.F,  20  June  1917. 
Sir, — A  few  weeks  ago  we  were 
resting  in  a  little  village  which  had 
the  reputation  of  a  haunted  house. 
I  made  several  attempts  to  extract 
from  the  owner  a  little  informa- 
tion concerning  his  ghostly  tenant, 
but  each  time  he  was  visibly  pain- 
ed and  warned  me  severely  against 
impetuous  (?)  steps.  I  was  de- 
termined to  see  it  through,  how- 
ever, by  sleeping  in  the  place  for  a 
night.  I  had  some  difficulty  in 
forcing  an  entry,  but  eventually 
succeeded  in  getting  through  a 
window  as  the  village  clock  told 
eleven  hours  p.  m.  I  lit  my  pipe, 
spread  my  ground  sheet  on  the 
clay  floor  and  nestled  down  in  my 
great-coat.  I  was  tired  and  must 
have  fallen  asleep  almost  imme- 
diately. On  a  sudden  I  was 
awakened  by  a  noise  like  a  rush- 
ing of  wings  or  falling  water,  and 
a  voice  which  I  had  heard  before, 
once  in  London  and  once  in  Man- 
chester, a  familiar  voice,  distinct- 
•  ly  called  my  name.  Then  silence 
fell  for  a  few  minutes,  only  to  be 
broken  by  a  similar  noise  and,  this 
time,  footsteps,  such  as  are  heard 
where  men  are  surprised.  Al- 
though I  am  not  a  brave  man,  I 
cannot  admit  to  having  any  trem- 
ors beyond  that  of  intense  excite- 
ment at  so  wonderful  a  thing  as 
the  supernatural ;  and  then  I  have 
my  own  private  way  of  explain- 
ing a  voice  which  is  as  dear  from 
the  soul  as  from  the  body  I  loved. 
Yours  truly, 

FRANCIS  LEDWIDGE. 

For  those  who  are  curious  in  the 
matter  of  psychic  phenomena,  this  evi- 
dence of  a  "warning"  will  be  of  power- 
ful value. 


MHICAGOEVEMGPOST 

U.EWEULYN    JONES,    nterary    Editor 


The  Friday  issue  of  THE  "POST,  con- 
taining the  Literary  Review,  will  be 
mailed  to  any  address  outside  Chicago 
for  $1  a  year. 


The  Chicago  Evening  Post  Friday 
lAterary  Review,  being  the  tceekly 
book  section  of  The  Post,  is  devoted 
to  the  criticism  of  current  literature, 
the  publication  of  literary  comment 
and  of  book  news. 


FRIDAY,    AUGUST    10,    1017. 


Francis  Ledwidge. 

Over  a  year  ago  we  reviewed  in 
these  columns  the  first  book  of  verse 
,  of  Francis  Ledwidge,  a  young  Irish 
poet:  of  marked  originality  and  charm, 
who  was  introduced  to  the  world  by 
Lord  Dunsany. 

Early  this  year  his  second  collec- 
tion of  verses  was  published.    Lord 
Dunsany  introduced   them   and  gave 
j   them  their  title  of  "Songs  of  Peace," 
: .  for,  he  says,  the  poet's  "devotion  to 
!    the  fields  of  Meath,  that,  in  nearly  all 
I   his  songs,  from  such  far  places  brings 
i   his  spirit  home,  like  the  instinct  that 
'  has  been  given  to  the  swallows,  seems 
to  be  the  keynote  of  the  book."     The 
fa  r  places  Lord   Dunsany    refers    to 
were  Serbia  and  Egypt,  whence  Led- 
widge was  invalided  home. 

But  now,  a  short  time  after  some 
of  us  had  eagerly  seized  upon  the  few 
copies  of  the  book  imported  from 
England,  there  comes  a  short  dispatch 
from  London : 

Lance  Corporal  Francis  Ledwidge,  a 
Peasant  poet  of  Meath,  Ireland,  was 
killed  on  the  battle  front  in  Flanders 
July  31.  He  was  28  years  old. 


who  was  introduced  to  the  world  by 
Lord  Dunsany. 

Early  this  year  his  second  collec- 
tion of  verses  was  published.  Lord 
Dunsany  introduced  them  and  gave 
them  their  title  of  "Songs  of  Peace," 
.  for,  he  says,  the  poet's  "devotion  to 
the  fields  of  Meath,  that,  In  nearly  all 
his  songs,  from  such  far  places  brings 
nig  spirit  home,  like  the  instinct  that 
has  been  given  to  the  swallows,  seems 
to  be  the  keynote  of  the  book."  The 
far  places  Lord  Dunsany  refers  to 
were  Serbia  and  Egypt,  whence  Led- 
widge was  invalided  home. 

But  now,  a  short  time  after  some 
of  us  had  eagerly  seized  upon  the  few 
copies  of  the  book  imported  from 
England,  there  comes  a  short  dispatch 
from  London : 

Lance  Corporal  Francis  Ledwidge,  a 
peasant  poet  of  Meath.  Ireland,  was 
killed  on  the  battle  front  in  Flanders 
July  31.  He  was  26  years  old. 

Lord  Dunsany  has  somewhere  ex- 
pressed his  faith  that  "there  will  he 
singing  after  the  war"— that  only  the 
carrying  on  of  the  war  to  a  success- 
ful conclusion  will  guarantee  a  world 
in  which  singing  is  possible.  It  was, 
doubtless,  in  this  faith  that  Ledwidge 
joined  the  Fifth  Inniskilling  Fusiliers 
under  Dunsany's  captaincy.  But  one 
must  be  able  to  live  in  the  future 
very  intensely  to  see  with  any  (vjnji- 
nimity  such  sacrifices  for  it  us  those 
of  Rupert  Brooke,  Edward  Tlioin:is 
and  Francis  Ledwidge.  More,  per- 
haps, in  the  case  of  Ledwidge  than  of 
Brooke,  for  the  latter  welcomed  the 
war  in  his  verse  as  in  his  111 
took  his  life,  hut  gave  him  a  legend 
and  an  immortality.  Ledwidge  was 
younger  than  Brooke  both  in  years 
and  as  a  poet.  He  had  been  a  p«-as- 
ant  and  a  wanderer  seeking  his  bread 
in  humble  ways.  It  was  only  within 
a  few  months  of  his  verse  being  rec- 
iblishod  that  h 


I 


invalided,  and  his  death  following 
close  upon  the  publication  of  his  sec- 
ond book.  And  — unlike  Rupert 
Brooke— one  reads  Mr.  I.edwidge's 
poetry  with  the  feeling  that,  after 
all,  the  war  was  no  concern  of  his. 
The  man  was  in  it,  true,  but  the  poet 
was  not.  Patriotism,  a  desire  to  fol- 
low his  patron  and  friend,  Lord  Dun- 
sany,  one  motive  or  many  motives 
mixed  may  have  called  Francis  Led- 
widge  into  action.  The  poet  in  him 
responded  to  his  surroundings  in 
Greece  and  Serbia.  He  used  the  nc 
sights  and  the  new  sounds,  and  some 
very  beautiful  poems  are  the  result. 
But  in  this  latest  book  (which,  we 
presume,  will  soon  be  published  in 
this  country  by  Messrs.  Duffield  & 
Co.,  who  handled  his  previous  work; 
there  is  singularly  little  direct  refer- 
ence to  the  war.  In  fact,  here  is  the 
only  personal  note  about  the  matter 

IN    THE    MEDITERRANEAN-GOING 

TO  THE  WAR. 
Lovely  wings  of  gold  and  green 

Flit  abo-ut  the  sounds  I  hear, 
On  my  window  when  I  lean 
To  the  shadows  cool  a.nd  clear. 

Roaming,  I  am  listening  still, 
Bending,  listening  overlong. 

In  my  soul  a  steadier  will, 
In  my  heart  a  newer  song. 

Of  course,  we  know  not  what  fur 
tber  material  Lord  Dunsany  possesse 
from    Ledwidge's   hand,    or    whethe 
it  is  enough  for  a  posthumous  thir 
Volume.    But  if  in  that,  as  in   th 
^)ems  published  so  far,  there  is  th 
saVne  loyalty  to  the  original  impetu 
of  the  poet's  muse,  the  fields  of  Meath, 
the  song  of  the  blackbird,  the  occa- 
sional  reminiscence   Of    Irish    legend 
and  the  same  refusal  to  let  the  war 
spread  from  the  field  of  battle  to  the 
poet's  page  that  has  so  far  character- 
ized  Mr.   Ledwidge's  verse,  the  fact 


Koamlng,  I  am  listening  still, 
Bending,  listening  overlong, 

In  my  soul  a  steadier  will, 
In  my  heart  a  newer  song. 

Of  course,  we  know  not  what  fur- 
ther material  Lord  Dunsany  possesses 
from  Ledwidge's  hand,  or  whether 
it  is  enough  for  a  posthumous  third 
\jolume.  But  if  in  that,  as  in  the 
p^ems  published  so  far,  there  is  the 
salue  loyalty  to  the  original  impetus 
of  the  poet's  muse,  the  fields  of  Meath, 
the  song  of  the  blackbird,  the  occa- 
sional reminiscence  of  Irish  legend 
and  the  same  refusal  to  let  the  war 
spread  from  the  field  of  battle  to  the 
poet's  page  that  has  so  far  character- 
ized Mr.  Ledwidge's  verse,  the  fact 
will  be  tragic  and  significant.  For  its 
implication  is  obviously  that  Mr.  Led- 
widge  had  no  illusions  about  the  war. 
Evidently,  he  regarded  it  as  a  job, 
something  necessary  to  be  carried 
thru  for  the  sake  of  civilization  and 
of  peace,  not  as  a  romantic  adventure 
nor  as  a  theme  for  art.  The  mere  ro- 
manticist needs  war  in  his  business ; 
he  sings  its  glories  and  could  not  sing 
without  its  aid — which  he  cannot  see 
to  be  something  quite  adventitious 
from  the  standpoint  of  art.  In  Led- 
widge  we  see  the  approach  to  the  war 
of  the  artist  who  is  a  pure  artist  and 
not  a  romanticist.  He  ignores  it.  If 
it  brings  him  to  Greece,  he  does  not 
ignore  Greece.  If  it  requires  his  per- 
son, his  life,  he  is  ready  to  give  i,hem. 
But  the  garden  of  his  muse  is  in- 
violate and.  inviolable. 

And  so  Ledwidge  the  man  is  dead, 
but  the  poet  will  live  in  his  few  pages 
of  lyrical  rhapsody,  poured  out  in  his 
own  notes  and  on  his  own  themes,  in 
lofty  indifference  to  the  outer  circum- 
stances that  were  to  kill  him  on  the 
threshold  of  his  career. 


invalided,    and   his    death 

close  upon  the  publication  of  his  s< 

ond      book.       Aud  —  unlike      Runert 

te's 
!trr 
lis. 
OPt 
ol- 
111- 
' 


8! 

vnr, 

I, 


^iOOI 
%>6 
^8t5 


.......    -u 

'-  ^ 


sr; 
-de 


siSno,  BB  -oo  ,  uoSul3?H  '-'I 
pa^onb  aa^  spuoq  5u9uiua»Ao3  uSiaaoj 

SQN09  LA09  N9I3HOJ 


..^ :::::: 


jovu«AV_^H 


JOJ 


::^«l 


I  OJ9AV     S7( 


INTRODUCTION 
By   LORD  DUNSANY 

IF  one  who  looked  from  a  tower  for  a  new 
star,  watching  for  years  the  same  part 
of  the  sky,  suddenly  saw  it  (quite  by 
chance  while  thinking  of  other  things), 
and  knew  it  for  the  star  for  which  he  had 
hoped,  how  many  millions  of  men  would  never 
care  ? 

And  the  star  might  blaze  over  deserts  and 
forests  and  seas,  cheering  lost  wanderers  in 
desolate  lands,  or  guiding  dangerous  quests  ; 
millions  would  never  know  it. 

And  a  poet  is  no  more  than  a  star. 
If  one  has  arisen  where  I  have  so  long  looked 
for  one,  amongst  the  Irish  peasants,  it  can  be 
little  more  than  a  secret  that  I  shall  share  with 
those  who  read  this  book  because  they  care  for 
poetry. 

I  have  looked  for  a  poet  amongst  the  Irish 
peasants  because  it  seemed  to  me  that  almost 
only  amongst  them  there  was  in  daily  use  a 
7 


8  INTRODUCTION 

diction  worthy  of  poetry,  as  well  as  an  imagi- 
nation capable  of  dealing  with  the  great  and 
simple  things  that  are  a  poet's  wares.  Their 
thoughts  are  in  the  spring-time,  and  all  their 
metaphors  fresh  :  in  London  no  one  makes 
metaphors  any  more,  but  daily  speech  is 
strewn  thickly  with  dead  ones  that  their  users 
should  write  upon  paper  and  give  to  their 
gardeners  to  burn. 

In  this  same  London,  two  years  ago,  where 
I  was  wasting  June,  I  received  a  letter  one  day 
from  Mr.  Ledwidge  and  a  very  old  copy-book. 
The  letter  asked  whether  there  was  any  good 
in  the  verses  that  filled  the  copy-book,  the 
produce  apparently  of  four  or  five  years.  It 
began  with  a  play  in  verse  that  no  manager 
would  dream  of,  there  were  mistakes  in  gram- 
mar, in  spelling  of  course,  and  worse — there 
were  such  phrases  as  "  'thwart  the  rolling 
foam,"  "  waiting  for  my  true  love  on  the  lea," 
etc.,  which  are  vulgarly  considered  to  be  the 
appurtenances  of  poetry ;  but  out  of  these 
and  many  similar  errors  there  arose  continually, 
like  a  mountain  sheer  out  of  marshes,  that  easy 
fluency  of  shapely  lines  which  is  now  so 
noticeable  in  all  that  he  writes  ;  that  and 
sudden  glimpses  of  the  fields  that  he  seems  at 
times  to  bring  so  near  to  one  that  one  exclaims, 


INTRODUCTION  9 

"  Why,  that  is  how  Meath  looks,"  or  "It  is 
just  like  that  along  the  Boyne  in  April,"  quite 
taken  by  surprise  by  familiar  things  :  for  none 
of  us  knows,  till  the  poets  point  them  out,  how 
many  beautiful  things  are  close  about  us. 

Of  pure  poetry  there  are  two  kinds,  that 
which  mirrors  the  beauty  of  the  world  in  which 
our  bodies  are,  and  that  which  builds  the  more 
mysterious  kingdoms  where  geography  ends 
and  fairyland  begins,  with  gods  and  heroes  at 
war,  and  the  sirens  singing  still,  and  Alph 
going  down  to  the  darkness  from  Xanadu. 
Mr.  Ledwidge  gives  us  the  first  kind.  When 
they  have  read  through  the  profounder  poets, 
and  seen  the  problem  plays,  and  studied  all  the 
perplexities  that  puzzle  man  in  the  cities,  the 
small  circle  of  readers  that  I  predict  for  him 
will  turn  to  Ledwidge  as  to  a  mirror  reflecting 
beautiful  fields,  as  to  a  very  still  lake  rather  on 
a  very  cloudless  evening. 

There  is  scarcely  a  smile  of  Spring  or  a  sigh 
of  Autumn  that  is  not  reflected  here,  scarcely 
a  phase  of  the  large  benedictions  of  Summer  ; 
even  of  Winter  he  gives  us  clear  glimpses 
sometimes,  albeit  mournfully,  remembering 
Spring. 

"  In  the  red  west  the  twisted  moon  is  low, 
And  on  the  bubbles  there  are  half-lit  stars  : 


io  INTRODUCTION 

Music  and  twilight :  and  the  deep  blue  flow 
Of  water  :  and  the  watching  fire  of  Mars. 
The  deep  fish  slipping  through  the  moonlit  bars 
Make  death  a  thing  of  sweet  dreams, — " 

What  a  Summer's  evening  is  here. 

And  this  is  a  Summer's  night  in  a  much  longer 
poem  that  I  have  not  included  in  this  selection, 
a  summer's  night  seen  by  two  lovers  : 

"  The  large  moon  rose  up  queenly  as  a  flower 
Charmed  by  some  Indian  pipes.     A  hare  went  by, 
A  snipe  above  them  circled  in  the  sky." 

And  elsewhere  he  writes,  giving  us  the  mood 
and  picture  of  Autumn  in  a  single  line  : 

"  And  somewhere  all  the  wandering  birds  have  flown." 

With  such  simple  scenes  as  this  the  book  is 
full,  giving  nothing  at  all  to  those  that  look  for 
a  "  message,"  but  bringing  a  feeling  of  quiet 
from  gleaming  Irish  evenings,  a  book  to  read 
between  the  Strand  and  Piccadilly  Circus 
amidst  the  thunder  and  hootings. 

To  every  poet  is  given  the  revelation  of 
some  living  thing  so  intimate  that  he  speaks, 
when  he  speaks  of  it,  as  an  ambassador  speak- 
ing for  his  sovereign  ;  with  Homer  it  was  the 
heroes,  with  Ledwidge  it  is  the  small  birds  that 
sing,  but  in  particular  especially  the  blackbird, 
whose  cause  he  champions  against  all  other 


INTRODUCTION  n 

birds  almost  with  a  vehemence  such  as  that 

with  which  men  discuss  whether  Mr. ,  M.P., 

or  his  friend  the  Right  Honourable  is 

really  the  greater  ruffian.  This  is  how  he 
speaks  of  the  blackbird  in  one  of  his  earliest 
poems  ;  he  was  sixteen  when  he  wrote  it,  in 
a  grocer's  shop  in  Dublin,  dreaming  of  Slane, 
where  he  was  born  ;  and  his  dreams  turned 
out  to  be  too  strong  for  the  grocery  business, 
for  he  walked  home  one  night,  a  distance  of 
thirty  miles  : 

"  Above  me  smokes  the  little  town 
With  its  whitewashed  walls  and  roofs  of  brown 
And  its  octagon  spire  toned  smoothly  down 

As  the  holy  minds  within. 
And  wondrous,  impudently  sweet, 
Half  of  him  passion,  half  conceit, 
The  blackbird  calls  adown  the  street, 

Like  the  piper  of  Hamelin." 

Let  us  not  call  him  the  Burns  of  Ireland, 
you  who  may  like  this  book,  nor  even  the  Irish 
John  Clare,  though  he  is  more  like  him,  for 
poets  are  all  incomparable  (it  is  only  the 
versifiers  that  resemble  the  great  ones),  but  let 
us  know  him  by  his  own  individual  song  :  he 
is  the  poet  of  the  blackbird. 

I  hope  that  not  too  many  will  be  attracted 
to  this  book  on  account  of  the  author  being  a 
peasant,  lest  he  come  to  be  praised  by  the  how- 


12  INTRODUCTION 

interesting  !  school ;  for  know  that  neither  in 
any  class,  nor  in  any  country,  nor  in  any  age, 
shall  you  predict  the  footfall  of  Pegasus,  who 
touches  the  earth  where  he  pleaseth  and  is 
bridled  by  whom  he  will. 

DUNSANY. 
June,  1914. 


I  WROTE  this  preface  in  such  a  different  June, 
that  if  I  sent  it  out  with  no  addition  it  would 
make  the  book  appear  to  have  dropped  a 
long  while  since  out  of  another  world,  a  world 
that  none  of  us  remembers  now,  in  which  there 
used  to  be  leisure. 

Ledwidge  came  last  October  into  the  5th 
Battalion  of  the  Royal  Inniskilling  Fusiliers, 
which  is  in  one  of  the  divisions  of  Kitchener's 
first  army,  and  soon  earned  a  lance-corporal's 
stripe. 

All  his  future  books  lie  on  the  knees  of  the 
gods.  May  They  not  be  the  only  readers. 

Any  well-informed  spy  can  probably  tell 
you  our  movements,  so  of  such  things  I  say 
nothing. 

DUNSANY,  Captain, 
June,  J?fJ.  jth  J?.  Inniskilling  Fusiliers. 


CONTENTS 

PACE 

To  MY  BEST  FRIEND            .  .                  .  15 

BEHIND  THE  CLOSED  EYE    .  .                  .17 

BOUND  TO  THE  MAST          .  .                  .  19 

To  A  LINNET  IN  A  CAGE     .  .                  .  22 

A  TWILIGHT  IN  MIDDLE  MARCH  .          .       .  24 

SPRING     .              .              .  ...  26 

DESIRE  IN  SPRING               ..  ...  28 

A  RAINY  DAY  IN  APRIL      .  .                  .  29 

A  SONG  OF  APRIL               .  .   .          .       .  32 

THE  BROKEN  TRYST           .  .       '  .       .34 

THOUGHTS  AT  THE  TRYSTING  STILE.           .       .  36 

EVENING  IN  MAY  .              .  ..                  .  39 

AN  ATTEMPT  AT  A  CITY  SUNSET      ..  .       .41 

WAITING  .              .             .  ....  43 

THE  SINGER'S  MUSE            . .  '  •••  ,          ».       .  44 

INAMORATA             .              .,  •  ...  46 

THE  WIFE  OF  LLEW            .  .                  .  48 

THE  HILLS             .              .  ...  49 

JUNE         .              .              .  ...  51 

IN  MANCHESTER    .              .  .                  .  53 

Music  ON  WATER                .  .                  .  55 

To  M.  McG.           .               .  ...  58 

IN  THE  DUSK         .              .  .           .        .  60 

13 


14  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE  DEATH  OF  AILILL        .  .    62 

AUGUST    .             .             .  .    64 

THE  VISITATION  OF  PEACE  .                  .    65 

BEFORE  THE  TEARS             .  .                  .    70 

GOD'S  REMEMBRANCE          .  .                  .    72 

AN  OLD  PAIN        .             .  .          .       .    74 

THE  LOST  ONES     .              .  ...    78 

ALL-HALLOWS  EVE              .  .                  .    80 

A  MEMORY             .              .  ...    83 

A  SONG    .              .              .  ...    87 

A  FEAR    .              .              .  ...    89 

THE  COMING  POET              .  .                  .    90 

THE  VISION  ON  THE  BRINK  .                  .    92 

To  LORD  DUNSANY              .  .                   .    94 

ON  AN  OATEN  STRAW         .  .                  .    96 

EVENING  IN  FEBRUARY       .  .          .       .    97 

THE  SISTER           .              .  ...    98 

BEFORE  THE  WAR  OF  COOLEY  .           .        .  100 

LOW-MOON  LAND    .              .  .                  .  103 

THE  SORROW  OF  FINDEBAR  .           .       .  105 

ON  DREAM  WATER              .  .           .        .  108 

THE  DEATH  OF  SUALTEM    .  .          .       .  109 

THE  MAID  IN  LOW-MOON  LAND  .          .       .113 
THE  DEATH  OF  LEAG,  CUCHULAIN'S  CHARIOTEER  114 

THE  PASSING  OF  CAOILTE   .  .          .       .  117 

GROWING  OLD       .              .  .          .       .  119 

AFTER  MY  LAST  SONG  .  121 


TO  MY  BEST  FRIEND 

I  LOVE  the  wet-lipped  wind  that  stirs  the  hedge 
And  kisses  the  bent  flowers  that  drooped  for 

rain, 

That  stirs  the  poppy  on  the  sun-burned  ledge 
And  like  a  swan  dies  singing,  without  pain. 
The  golden  bees  go  buzzing  down  to  stain 

The  lilies'  frills,  and  the  blue  harebell  rings, 
And    the    sweet    blackbird    in    the    rainbow 
sings. 

Deep  in  the  meadows  I  would  sing  a  song, 
The  shallow  brook  my  tuning-fork,  the  birds 

My  masters  ;  and  the  boughs  they  hop  along 
'5 


16  TO   MY   BEST  FRIEND 

Shall  mark  my  time  :   but  there  shall  be  no 

words 
For  lurking  Echo's  mock  ;  an  angel  herds 

Words  that  I  may  not  know,  within,  for  you, 
Words  for  the  faithful  meet,  the  good  and  true. 


BEHIND  THE  CLOSED   EYE 

I  WALK  the  old  frequented  ways 
That  wind  around  the  tangled  braes, 

I  live  again  the  sunny  days 
Ere  I  the  city  knew. 

And  scenes  of  old  again  are  born, 
The  woodbine  lassoing  the  thorn, 

And  drooping  Ruth-like  in  the  corn 
The  poppies  weep  the  dew. 

Above  me  in  their  hundred  schools 

The  magpies  bend  their  young  to  rules, 
And  like  an  apron  full  of  jewels 

The  dewy  cobweb  swings. 
B  17 


i8  BEHIND  THE  CLOSED  EYE 

And  frisking  in  the  stream  below 

The  troutlets  make  the  circles  flow, 
And  the  hungry  crane  doth  watch  them  grow 

As  a  smoker  does  his  rings. 

Above  me  smokes  the  little  town, 

With  its  whitewashed  walls  and  roofs  of  brown 
And  its  octagon  spire  toned  smoothly  down 

As  the  holy  minds  within. 

And  wondrous  impudently  sweet, 
Half  of  him  passion,  half  conceit, 

The  blackbird  calls  adown  the  street 
Like  the  piper  of  Hamelin. 

I  hear  him,  and  I  feel  the  lure 
Drawing  me  back  to  the  homely  moor, 

I'll  go  and  close  the  mountains'  door 
On  the  city's  strife  and  din. 


BOUND  TO  THE  MAST 

WHEN  mildly  falls  the  deluge  of  the  grass, 

And  meads  begin  to  rise  like  Noah's  flood, 

And  o'er  the  hedgerows  flow,  and  onward  pass, 
Dribbling  thro'  many  a  wood ; 

When  hawthorn  trees  their  flags  of  truce  un- 
furl, 

And  dykes  are  spitting  violets  to  the  breeze  ; 

When  meadow  larks  their  jocund  flight  will 
curl 

From  Earth's  to  Heaven's  leas  ; 

Ah  !  then  the  poet's  dreams  are  most  sublime, 
A-sail  on  seas  that  know  a  heavenly  calm, 

And  in  his  song  you  hear  the  river's  rhyme, 
19 


20  BOUND  TO  THE   MAST 

And  the  first  bleat  of  the  lamb. 
Then  when  the  summer  evenings  fall  serene, 
Unto  the  country  dance  his  songs  repair, 
And  you  may  meet  some  maids  with  angel  mien, 
Bright  eyes  and  twilight  hair. 

When  Autumn's  crayon  tones  the  green  leaves 

sere, 

And  breezes  honed  on  icebergs  hurry  past ; 
When  meadow-tides  have  ebbed  and  woods 

grow  drear, 

And  bow  before  the  blast ; 
When  briars  make  semicircles  on  the  way  ; 
When  blackbirds  hide  their  flutes  and  cower 

and  die ; 

When  swollen  rivers  lose  themselves  and  stray 
Beneath  a  murky  sky ; 


BOUND   TO   THE   MAST  21 

Then    doth    the    poet's   voice    like    cuckoo's 

break, 
And   round   his    verse   the   hungry   lapwing 

grieves, 
And  melancholy  in  his  dreary  wake 

The  funeral  of  the  leaves. 
Then  when  the  Autumn  dies  upon  the  plain, 
Wound  in  the  snow  alike  his  right  and  wrong, 
The  poet  sings, — albeit  a  sad  strain, — 
Bound  to  the  Mast  of  Song. 


TO  A  LINNET  IN  A  CAGE 

WHEN  Spring  is  in  the  fields  that  stained  your 
wing, 

And  the  blue  distance  is  alive  with  song, 
And  finny  quiets  of  the  gabbling  spring 

Rock  lilies  red  and  long, 
At  dewy  daybreak,  I  will  set  you  free 

In  ferny  turnings  of  the  woodbine  lane, 
Where  faint-voiced  echoes  leave  and  cross  in 
glee 

The  hilly  swollen  plain. 

In  draughty  houses  you  forget  your  tune, 
The  modulator  of  the  changing  hours, 


TO  A   LINNET   IN   A  CAGE  23 

You  want  the  wide  air  of  the  moody  noon, 

And  the  slanting  evening  showers. 
So  I  will  loose  you,  and  your  song  shall  fall 

When  morn  is  white  upon  the  dewy  pane, 
Across  my  eyelids,  and  my  soul  recall 

From  worlds  of  sleeping  pain. 


A  TWILIGHT  IN  MIDDLE  MARCH 

WITHIN  the  oak  a  throb  of  pigeon  wings 
Fell  silent,  and  grey  twilight  hushed  the  fold, 
And  spiders'  hammocks  swung  on  half-oped 

things 

That  shook  like  foreigners  upon  our  cold. 
A  gipsy  lit  a  fire  and  made  a  sound 
Of  moving  tins,  and  from  an  oblong  moon 
The  river  seemed  to  gush  across  the  ground 
To  the  cracked  metre  of  a  marching  tune. 

And  then  three  syllables  of  melody 
Dropped  from  a  blackbird's  flute,  and  died 
apart 

Far  in  the  dewy  dark.    No  more  but  three, 
24 


A  TWILIGHT   IN    MIDDLE   MARCH        25 

Yet  sweeter  music  never  touched  a  heart 
Neath  the  blue  domes  of  London.    Flute  and 

reed, 

Suggesting  feelings  of  the  solitude 
When  will  was  all  the  Delphi  I  would  heed, 
Lost  like  a  wind  within  a  summer  wood 
From  little  knowledge  where  great  sorrows 

brood. 


SPRING 

THE  dews  drip  roses  on  the  meadows 
Where  the  meek  daisies  dot  the  sward. 
And  JEolus  whispers  through  the  shadows, 
"  Behold  the  handmaid  of  the  Lord  !  " 
The  golden  news  the  skylark  waketh 
And  'thwart  the  heavens  his  flight  is  curled 
Attend  ye  as  the  first  note  breaketh 
And  chrism  droppeth  on  the  world. 


The  velvet  dusk  still  haunts  the  stream 
Where  Pan  makes  music  light  and  gay. 
The  mountain  mist  hath  caught  a  beam 

And  slowly  weeps  itself  away. 
26 


SPRING  27 

The  young  leaf  bursts  its  chrysalis 
And  gem-like  hangs  upon  the  bough, 
Where  the  mad  throstle  sings  in  bliss 
O'er  earth's  rejuvenated  brow. 

ENVOI 

Slowly  fall,  O  golden  sands, 
Slowly  fall  and  let  me  sing, 
Wrapt  in  the  ecstasy  of  youth, 
The  wild  delights  of  Spring. 


DESIRE  IN  SPRING 

I  LOVE  the  cradle  songs  the  mothers  sing 
In  lonely  places  when  the  twilight  drops, 
The  slow  endearing  melodies  that  bring 
Sleep  to  the  weeping  lids ;  and,  when  she  stops, 
I  love  the  roadside  birds  upon  the  tops 
Of  dusty  hedges  in  a  world  of  Spring. 

X- 

And  when  the  sunny  rain  drips  from  the  edge 
Of  midday  wind,  and  meadows  lean  one  way, 
And  a  long  whisper  passes  thro'  the  sedge, 
Beside  the  broken  water  let  me  stay, 
While  these  old  airs  upon  my  memory  play, 
And  silent  changes  colour  up  the  hedge. 
28 


A   RAINY  DAY  IN  APRIL 

WHEN  the  clouds  shake  their  hyssops,  and  the 

rain 

Like  holy  water  falls  upon  the  plain, 
'Tis  sweet  to  gaze  upon  the  springing  grain 
And  see  your  harvest  born. 

And  sweet  the  little  breeze  of  melody, 
The  blackbird  puffs  upon  the  budding  tree, 
While  the  wild  poppy  lights  upon  the  lea 
And  blazes  'mid  the  corn. 

The  skylark  soars  the  freshening  shower  to 
hail, 

And  the  meek  daisy  holds  aloft  her  pail, 
29 


30  A  RAINY  DAY   IN   APRIL 

And  Spring  all  radiant  by  the  wayside  pale, 

Sets  up  her  rock  and  reel. 

See  how  she  weaves  her  mantle  fold  on  fold, 
Hemming  the  woods  and  carpeting  the  wold. 
Her  warp  is  of  the  green,  her  woof  the  gold, 
The  spinning  world  her  wheel. 

By'n  by  above  the  hills  a  pilgrim  moon 
Will  rise  to  light  upon  the  midnight  noon, 
But  still  she  plieth  to  the  lonesome  tune 
Of  the  brown  meadow  rail. 

No  heavy  dreams  upon  her  eyelids  weigh, 
Nor  do  her  busy  fingers  ever  stay  ; 
She  knows  a  fairy  prince  is  on  the  way 
To  wake  a  sleeping  beauty. 


A  RAINY  DAY   IN  APRIL  31 

To  deck  the  pathway  that  his  feet  must  tread, 
To  fringe  the  'broidery  of  the  roses'  bed, 
To  show  the  Summer  she  but  sleeps, — not 

dead, 
This  is  her  fixed  duty. 

ENVOI 

To-day  while  leaving  my  dear  home  behind, 
My  eyes  with  salty  homesick  teardrops  blind, 
The  rain  fell  on  me  sorrowful  and  kind 
Like  angels'  tears  of  pity. 

'Twas  then  I  heard  the  small  birds'  melodies, 

And  saw  the  poppies'  bonfire  on  the  leas, 

As  Spring  came  whispering  thro'  the  leafing 

trees 
Giving  to  me  my  ditty. 


A  SONG  OF  APRIL 

THE  censer  of  the  eglantine  was  moved 
By  little  lane  winds,  and  the  watching  faces 
Of  garden  flowerets,  which  of  old  she  loved, 
Peep  shyly  outward  from  their  silent  places. 
But  when  the  sun  arose  the  flowers  grew 

bolder, 

And  she  will  be  in  white,  I  thought,  and  she 
Will  have  a  cuckoo  on  her  either  shoulder, 
And  woodbine  twines  and  fragrant  wings  of 

pea. 


And  I  will  meet  her  on  the  hills  of  South, 

And  I  will  lead  her  to  a  northern  water, 
32 


A  SONG   OF  APRIL  33 

My  wild  one,  the  sweet  beautiful  uncouth, 
The  eldest  maiden  of  the  Winter's  daughter. 
And  down  the  rainbows  of  her  noon  shall  slide 
Lark  music,  and  the  little  sunbeam  people, 
And  nomad  wings  shall  fill  the  river  side, 
And  ground  winds  rocking  in  the  lily's  steeple. 


THE  BROKEN  TRYST 

THE  dropping  words  of  larks,  the  sweetest 

tongue 

That  sings  between  the  dusks,  tell  all  of  you  ; 
The  bursting  white  of  Peace  is  all  along 
Wing-ways,  and  pearly  droppings  of  the  dew 
Emberyl  the  cobwebs'  greyness,  and  the  blue 
Of  hiding  violets,  watching  for  your  face, 
Listen  for  you  in  every  dusky  place. 

You  will  not  answer  when  I  call  your  name, 

But  in  the  fog  of  blossom  do  you  hide 

To  change  my  doubts  into  a  red-faced  shame 

By'n  by  when  you  are  laughing  by  my  side  ? 
34 


THE  BROKEN  TRYST  35 

Or  will  you  never  come,  or  have  you  died, 
And  I  in  anguish  have  forgotten  all  ? 
And  shall  the  world  now  end  and  the  heavens 
fall? 


THOUGHTS  AT  THE  TRYSTING  STILE 

COME,  May,  and  hang  a  white  flag  on  each 

thorn, 
Make  truce  with  earth  and  heaven ;  the  April 

child 

Now  hides  her  sulky  face  deep  in  the  morn 
Of  your  new  flowers  by  the  water  wild 
And  in  the  ripples  of  the  rising  grass, 
And  rushes  bent  to  let  the  south  wind  pass 
On  with  her  tumult  of  swift  nomad  wings, 
And  broken  domes  of  downy  dandelion. 
Only  in  spasms  now  the  blackbird  sings. 

The  hour  is  all  a-dream. 

Nets  of  woodbine 

Throw  woven  shadows  over  dreaming  flowers, 
36 


THOUGHTS  AT  THE  TRYSTING  STILE     37 
And  dreaming,  a  bee-luring  lily  bends 
Its  tender  bell  where  blue  dyke-water  cowers 
Thro'  briars,  and  folded  ferns,  and  gripping 

ends 
Of  wild  convolvulus. 

The  lark's  sky-way 
Is  desolate. 

I  watch  an  apple-spray 
Beckon  across  a  wall  as  if  it  knew 
I  wait  the  calling  of  the  orchard  maid. 

Inly  I  feel  that  she  will  come  in  blue, 

With  yellow  on  her  hair,  and  two  curls  strayed 

Out  of  her  comb's  loose  stocks,  and  I  shall 

steal 

Behind  and  lay  my  hands  upon  her  eyes, 
"  Look  not,  but  be  my  Psyche  !  " 


38    THOUGHTS  AT  THE  TRYSTING  STILE 

And  her  peal 

Of  laughter  will  ring  far,  and  as  she  tries 
For  freedom  I  will  call  her  names  of  flowers 
That  climb  up  walls  ;  then  thro'  the  twilight 

hours 

We'll  talk  about  the  loves  of  ancient  queens, 
And  kisses  like  wasp-honey,  false  and  sweet, 
And  how  we  are  entangled  in  love's  snares 
Like  wind-looped  flowers. 


EVENING  IN  MAY 

THERE  is  nought  tragic  here,  tho'  night  uplifts 

A  narrow  curtain  where  the  footlights  burned, 

But  one  long  act  where  Love  each  bold  heart 

sifts 

And  blushes  in  the  dark,  but  has  not  spurned 
The  strong  resolve  of  noon.     The  maiden's 

head 

Is  brown  upon  the  shoulder  of  her  youth, 
Hearts  are  exchanged,  long  pent  up  words  are 

said, 
Blushes  burn  out  at  the  long  tale  of  truth. 

The  blackbird  blows  his  yellow  flute  so  strong, 

And  rolls  away  the  notes  in  careless  glee, 
39 


40  EVENING   IN    MAY 

It  breaks  the  rhythm  of  the  thrushes'  song, 
And  puts  red  shame  upon  his  rivalry. 

The  yellowhammers  on  the  roof  tiles  beat 
Sweet  little  dulcimers  to  broken  time, 

And  here  the  robin  with  a  heart  replete 
Has  all  in  one  short  plagiarised  rhyme. 


AN  ATTEMPT  AT  A  CITY  SUNSET 

(TO  j.  K.  Q.) 

THERE  was  a  quiet  glory  in  the  sky 
When  thro'  the  gables  sank  the  large  red  sun, 
And  toppling  mounts  of  rugged  cloud  went  by 
Heavy  with  whiteness,  and  the  moon  had  won 
Her  way  above  the  woods,  with  her  small  star 
Behind  her  like  the  cuckoo's  little  mother.  .  .  . 
It  was  the  hour  when  visions  from  some  far 
Strange  Eastern  dreams  like  twilight  bats  take 

wing 
Out  of  the  ruin  of  memories. 

O  brother 

Of  high  song,  wand'ring  where  the  Muses  fling 
41 


42       AN   ATTEMPT  AT  A   CITY   SUNSET 
Rich  gifts  as  prodigal  as  winter  rain, 
Like  stepping-stones  within  a  swollen  river 
The  hidden  words  are  sounding  in  my  brain, 
Too  wild  for  taming  ;  and  I  must  for  ever 
Think  of  the  hills  upon  the  wilderness, 
And  leave  the  city  sunset  to  your  song. 
For  there  I  am  a  stranger  like  the  trees 
That  sigh  upon  the  traffic  all  day  long. 


WAITING 

A  STRANGE  old  woman  on  the  wayside  sate, 
Looked  far  away  and  shook  her  head  and 

sighed. 

And  when  anon,  close  by,  a  rusty  gate 
Loud  on  the  warm  winds  cried, 
She  lifted  up  her  eyes  and  said,  "  You're  late." 
Then  shook  her  head  and  sighed. 

And  evening  found  her  thus,  and  night  in  state 
Walked  thro'  the  starlight,  and  a  heavy  tide 
Followed  the  yellow  moon  around  her  wait, 
And  morning  walked  in  wide. 
She  lifted  up  her  eyes  and  said,  "  You're  late." 

Then  shook  her  head  and  sighed. 
43 


THE   SINGER'S   MUSE 

I  BROUGHT  in  these  to  make  her  kitchen  sweet, 
Haw  blossoms  and  the  roses  of  the  lane. 
Her  heart  seemed  in  her  eyes  so  wild  they  beat 
With  welcome  for  the  boughs  of  Spring  again. 
She  never  heard  of  Babylon  or  Troy, 
She  read  no  book,  but  once  saw  Dublin  town  ; 
Yet  she  made  a  poet  of  her  servant  boy 
And  from  Parnassus  earned  the  laurel  crown. 

If  Fame,  the  Gorgon,  turns  me  into  stone 
Upon  some  city  square,  let  someone  place 
Thorn  blossoms  and  lane  roses  newly  blown 
Beside  my  feet,  and  underneath  them  trace  : 

44 


THE   SINGER'S   MUSE  45 

"  His  heart  was  like  a  bookful  of  girls'  song, 
With  little  loves  and  mighty  Care's  alloy. 
These  did  he  bring  his  muse,  and  suffered  long, 
Her  bashful  singer  and  her  servant  boy." 


INAMORATA 

THE  bees  were  holding  levees  in  the  flowers, 

Do  you  remember  how  each  puff  of  wind 

Made  every  wing  a  hum  ?    My  hand  in  yours 

Was  listening  to  your  heart,  but  now 

The  glory  is  all  faded,  and  I  find 

No  more  the  olden  mystery  of  the  hours 

When  you  were  lovely  and  our  hearts  would 

bow 

Each  to  the  will  of  each,  but  one  bright  day     . 
Is  stretching  like  an  isthmus  in  a  bay 
From  the  glad  years  that  I  have  left  behind. 

I  look  across  the  edge  of  things  that  were 

And  you  are  lovely  in  the  April  ways, 
46 


INAMORATA  47 

Holy  and  mute,  the  sigh  of  my  despair.  .  .  . 
I  hear  once  more  the  linnets'  April  tune 
Beyond  the  rainbow's  warp,  as  in  the  days 
You  brought  me  facefuls  of  your  smiles  to 

share 
Some  of  your  new-found  wonders.  ...  Oh 

when  soon 

I'm  wandering  the  wide  seas  for  other  lands, 
Sometimes  remember  me  with  folded  hands, 
And  keep  me  happy  in  your  pious  prayer. 


THE  WIFE  OF  LLEW 

AND   Gwydion  said  to  Math,  when  it  was 

Spring: 

"  Come  now  and  let  us  make  a  wife  for  Llew." 
And  so  they  broke  broad  boughs  yet  moist 

with  dew, 

And  in  a  shadow  made  a  magic  ring : 
They  took  the  violet  and  the  meadow-sweet 
To  form  her  pretty  face,  and  for  her  feet 
They  built  a  mound  of  daisies  on  a  wing 
And  for  her  voice  they  made  a  linnet  sing 
In  the  wide  poppy  blowing  for  her  mouth. 
And  over  all  they  chanted  twenty  hours. 
And  Llew  came  singing  from  the  azure  south 

And  bore  away  his  wife  of  birds  and  flowers. 
48 


THE    HILLS 

THE  hills  are  crying  from  the  fields  to  me, 
And  calling  me  with  music  from  a  choir 
Of  waters  in  their  woods  where  I  can  see 
The  bloom  unfolded  on  the  whins  like  fire. 
And,  as  the  evening  moon  climbs  ever  higher 
And  blots  away  the  shadows  from  the  slope, 
They  cry  to  me  like  things  devoid  of  hope. 

Pigeons  are  home.    Day  droops.     The  fields 

are  cold. 

Now  a  slow  wind  comes  labouring  up  the  sky 
With  a  small  cloud  long  steeped  in  sunset  gold, 
Like  Jason  with  the  precious  fleece  anigh 

The  harbour  of  lolcos.    Day's  bright  eye 
D  49 


50  THE   HILLS 

Is  filmed  with  the  twilight,  and  the  rill 

Shines  like  a  scimitar  upon  the  hill. 

And  moonbeams  drooping  thro'  the  coloured 

wood 

Are  full  of  little  people  winged  white. 
I'll  wander  thro'  the  moon-pale  solitude 
That  calls  across  the  intervening  night 
With  river  voices  at  their  utmost  height, 
Sweet  as  rain-water  in  the  blackbird's  flute 
That  strikes  the  world  in  admiration  mute. 


JUNE 

BROOM  out  the  floor  now,  lay  the  fender  by, 
And  plant  this  bee-sucked  bough  of  woodbine 

there, 

And  let  the  window  down.    The  butterfly 
Floats  in  upon  the  sunbeam,  and  the  fair 
Tanned  face  of  June,  the  nomad  gipsy,  laughs 
Above  her  widespread  wares,   the  while  she 

tells 

The  farmers'  fortunes  in  the  fields,  and  quaffs 
The  water  from  the  spider-peopled  wells. 

The  hedges  are  all  drowned  in  green  grass  seas, 

And  bobbing  poppies  flare  like  Elmor's  light, 
Si 


52  JUNE 

While  siren-like  the  pollen-stained  bees 
Drone  in  the  clover  depths.    And  up  the  height 
The  cuckoo's  voice  is  hoarse  and  broke  with 

joy- 

And  on  the  lowland  crops  the  crows  make  raid, 
Nor  fear  the  clappers  of  the  farmer's  boy, 
Who  sleeps,  like  drunken  Noah,  in  the  shade. 

And  loop  this  red  rose  in  that  hazel  ring 
That  snares  your  little  ear,  for  June  is  short 
And  we  must  joy  in  it  and  dance  and  sing, 
And  from  her  bounty  draw  her  rosy  worth. 
Ay  !  soon  the  swallows  will  be  flying  south, 
The  wind  wheel  north  to  gather  in  the  snow, 
Even  the  roses  spilt  on  youth's  red  mouth 
Will  soon  blow  down  the  road  all  roses  go. 


IN   MANCHESTER 

THERE  is  a  noise  of  feet  that  move  in  sin 
Under  the  side-faced  moon  here  where  I  stray, 
Want  by  me  like  a  Nemesis.    The  din 
Of  noon  is  in  my  ears,  but  far  away 
My  thoughts  are,  where  Peace  shuts  the  black- 
birds' wings 
And  it  is  cherry  time  by  all  the  springs. 

And  this  same  moon  floats  like  a  trail  of  fire 
Down  the  long  Boyne,  and  darts  white  arrows 

thro' 
The  mill  wood ;  her  white  skirt  is  on  the  weir, 

She  walks  thro'  crystal  mazes  of  the  dew, 
S3 


54  IN   MANCHESTER 

And  rests  awhile  upon  the  dewy  slope 
Where  I  will  hope  again  the  old,  old  hope. 

With  wandering  we  are  worn  my  muse  and  I, 
And,  if  I  sing,  my  song  knows  nought  of  mirth. 
I  often  think  my  soul  is  an  old  lie 
In  sackcloth,  it  repents  so  much  of  birth. 
But  I  will  build  it  yet  a  cloister  home 
Near  the  peace  of  lakes  when  I  have  ceased  to 
roam. 


MUSIC  ON   WATER 

WHERE   does   Remembrance  weep  when   we 

forget  ? 

From  whither  brings  she  back  an  old  delight  ? 
Why  do  we  weep  that  once  we  laughed  ?   and 

yet 
Why  are  we  sad  that  once  our  hearts  were 

light  ? 
I  sometimes  think  the  days  that  we  made 

bright 

Are  damned  within  us,  and  we  hear  them  yell, 
Deep  in  the  solitude  of  that  wide  hell, 
Because  we  welcome  in  some  new  regret. 


55 


56  MUSIC  ON   WATER 

I  will  remember  with  sad  heart  next  year 

This  music  and  this  water,  but  to-day 

Let  me  be  part  of  all  this  joy.    My  ear 

Caught  far-off  music  which  I  bid  away, 

The  light  of  one  fair  face  that  fain  would  stay 

Upon  the  heart's  broad  canvas,  as  the  Face 

On  Mary's  towel,  lighting  up  the  place. 

Too  sad  for  joy,  too  happy  for  a  tear. 

Methinks  I  see  the  music  like  a  lignt 
Low  on  the  bobbing  water,  and  the  fields 
Yellow  and  brown  alternate  on  the  height, 
Hanging  in  silence  there  like  battered  shields, 
Lean  forward  heavy  with  their  coloured  yields 
As  if  they  paid  it  homage  ;  and  the  strains, 
Prisoners  of  Echo,  up  the  sunburnt  plains 
Fade  on  the  cross-cut  to  a  future  night. 


MUSIC   ON   WATER  57 

In  the  red  West  the  twisted  moon  is  low, 
And  on  the  bubbles  there  are  half -lit  stars  : 
Music  and  twilight :  and  the  deep  blue  flow 
Of  water  :  and  the  watching  fire  of  Mars  : 
The  deep  fish  slipping  thro'  the  moonlit  bars 
Make  Death  a  thing  of  sweet  dreams,  life  a 

mock. 

And  the  soul  patient  by  the  heart's  loud  clock 
Watches  the  time,   and  thinks  it  wondrous 

slow. 


TO  M.  McG. 

(WHO  CAME  ONE  DAY  WHEN  WE  WERE  ALL 
GLOOMY  AND  CHEERED  US  WITH  SAD 
MUSIC) 

WE  were  all  sad  and  could  not  weep, 
Because  our  sorrow  had  not  tears  : 
You  came  a  silent  thing  like  Sleep, 
And  stole  away  our  fears. 


Old  memories  knocking  at  each  heart 
Troubled  us  with  the  world's  great  lie  : 
You  sat  a  little  way  apart 
And  made  a  fiddle  cry. 


TO   M.   McG.  59 

And  April  with  her  sunny  showers 
Came  laughing  up  the  fields  again  : 
White  wings  went  flashing  thro'  the  hours 
So  lately  full  of  pain. 

And  rivers  full  of  little  lights 
Came  down  the  fields  of  waving  green  : 
Our  immemorial  delights 
Stole  in  on  us  unseen. 


For  this  may  Good  Luck  let  you  loose 
Upon  her  treasures  many  years, 
And  Peace  unfurl  her  flag  of  truce 
To  any  threat 'ning  fears. 


IN  THE  DUSK 

DAY  hangs  its  light  between  two  dusks,  my 

heart, 

Always  beyond  the  dark  there  is  the  blue. 
Sometime  we'll  leave  the  dark;  myself  and 

you, 

And  revel  in  the  light  for  evermore. 
But  the  deep  pain  of  you  is  aching  smart, 
And  a  long  calling  weighs  upon  you  sore. 


Day  hangs  its  light  between  two  dusks,  and 
song 

Is  there  at  the  beginning  and  the  end. 
60 


IN   THE   DUSK  61 

You,  in  the  singing  dusk,  how  could  you  wend 
The  songless  way  Contentment  fleetly  wings  ? 
But  in  the  dark  your  beauty  shall  be  strong, 
Tho'  only  one  should  listen  how  it  sings. 


THE  DEATH  OF  AILILL 

WHEN  there  was  heard  no  more  the  war's  loud 

sound, 

And  only  the  rough  corn-crake  filled  the  hours, 
And  hill  winds  in  the  furze  and  drowsy  flowers, 
Maeve  in  her  chamber  with  her  white  head 

bowed 

On  Ailill's  heart  was  sobbing  :  "  I  have  found 
The  way  to  love  you  now,"  she  said,  and  he 
Winked  an  old  tear  away  and  said  :    "  The 

proud 

Unyielding  heart  loves  never."  And  then  she  : 
"  I  love  you  now,  tho'  once  when  we  were 

young 

62 


THE   DEATH    OF  AILILL  63 

We  walked  apart  like  two  who  were  estranged 
Because  I  loved  you  not,  now  all  is  changed." 
And  he  who  loved  her  always  called  her  name 
And  said  :  "  You  do  not  love  me,  'tis  your 

tongue 

Talks  in  the  dusk  ;  you  love  the  blazing  gold 
Won  in  the  battles,  and  the  soldier's  fame. 
You  love  the  stories  that  are  often  told 
By  poets  in  the  hall."    Then  Maeve  arose 
And   sought   her   daughter   Findebar :     "  O, 

child, 

Go  tell  your  father  that  my  love  went  wild 
With  all  my  wars  in  youth,  and  say  that  now 
I  love  him  stronger  than  I  hate  my  foes.  ..." 
And  Findebar  unto  her  father  sped 
And  touched  him  gently  on  the  rugged  brow, 
And  knew  by  the  cold  touch  that  he  was  dead. 


AUGUST 

SHE'LL  come  at  dusky  first  of  day, 

White  over  yellow  harvest's  song. 

Upon  her  dewy  rainbow  way 

She  shall  be  beautiful  and  strong. 

The  lidless  eye  of  noon  shall  spray 

Tan  on  her  ankles  in  the  hay, 

Shall  kiss  her  brown  the  whole  day  long. 

I'll  know  her  in  the  windrows,  tall 
Above  the  crickets  of  the  hay. 
I'll  know  her  when  her  odd  eyes  fall, 
One  May-blue,  one  November-grey. 
I'll  watch  her  from  the  red  barn  wall 
Take  down  her  rusty  scythe,  and  call, 

And  I  will  follow  her  away. 
64 


THE    VISITATION    OF    PEACE 

I  CLOSED  the  book  of  verse  where  Sorrow  wept 
Above  Love's  broken  fane  where  Hope  once 

prayed, 
And  thought  of  old  trysts  broken  and  trysts 

kept 

Only  to  chide  my  fondness.    Then  I  strayed 
Down  a  green  coil  of  lanes  where  murmuring 

wings 

Moved  up  and  down  like  lights  upon  the  sea, 
Searching  for  calm  amid  untroubled  things 
Of  wood  and  water.    The  industrious  bee 
Sang  in  his  barn  within  the  hollow  beech, 

And  in  a  distant  haggard  a  loud  mill 
E  65 


66  THE  VISITATION   OF   PEACE 

Hummed  like  a  war  of  hives.     A  whispered 

speech 

Of  corn  and  wind  was  on  the  yellow  hill, 
And  tattered  scarecrows  nodded  their  assent 
And  waved  their  arms  like  orators.   The  brown 
Nude  beauty  of  the  Autumn  sweetly  bent 
Over  the  woods,  across  the  little  town. 

I  sat  in  a  retreating  shade  beside 

The  river,  where  it  fell  across  a  weir 

Like  a  white  mane,  and  in  a  flourish  wide 

Roars  by  an  island  field  and  thro'  a  tier 

Of  leaning  sallies,  like  an  avenue 

When  the  moon's  flambeau  hunts  the  shadows 

out 

And  strikes  the  borders  white  across  the  dew. 
Where  little  ringlets  ended,  the  fleet  trout 


THE  VISITATION   OF   PEACE  67 

Fed  on  the  water  moths.   A  marsh  hen  crossed 
On  flying  wings  and  swimming  feet  to  where 
Her  mate  was  in  the  rushes  forest,  tossed 
On  the  heaving  dusk  like  swallows  in  the  air. 


Beyond  the  river  a  walled  rood  of  graves 
Hung  dead  with  all  its  hemlock  wan  and  sere, 
Save  where  the  wall  was  broken  and  long  waves 
Of  yellow  grass  flowed  outward  like  a  weir, 
As  if  the  dead  were  striving  for  more  room 
And  their  old  places  in  the  scheme  of  things  ; 
For  sometimes  the  thought  comes  that  the 

brown  tomb 

Is  not  the  end  of  all  our  labourings, 
But  we  are  born  once  more  of  wind  and  rain, 
To  sow  the  world  with  harvest  young  and  strong, 


68  THE  VISITATION   OF  PEACE 

That  men  may  live  by  men  'til  the  stars  wane, 

And  still  sweet  music  fill  the  blackbird's  song. 

But  O  for  truths  about  the  soul  denied. 
Shall  I  meet  Keats  in  some  wild  isle  of  balm, 
Dreaming  beside  a  tarn  where  green  and  wide 
Boughs  of  sweet  cinnamon  protect  the  calm 
Of  the  dark  water  ?  And  together  walk 
Thro'  hills  with  dimples  full  of  water  where 
White  angels  rest,  and  all  the  dead  years  talk 
About  the  changes  of  the  earth  ?    Despair 
Sometimes  takes  hold  of  me  but  yet  I  hope 
To  hope  the  old  hope  in  the  better  times 
When  I  am  free  to  cast  aside  the  rope 
That  binds  me  to  all  sadness  'till  my  rhymes 
Cry  like  lost  birds.    But  O,  if  I  should  die 
Ere  this  millennium,  and  my  hands  be  crossed 


THE   VISITATION    OF   PEACE  69 

Under  the  flowers  I  loved,  the  passers-by 
Shall  scowl  at  me  as  one  whose  soul  is  lost. 


But  a  soft  peace  came  to  me  when  the  West 
Shut  its  red  door  and  a  thin  streak  of  moon 
Was  twisted  on  the  twilight's  dusky  breast. 
It  wrapped  me  up  as  sometimes  a  sweet  tune 
Heard  for  the  first   time  wraps   the  scenes 

around, 
That  we  may  have  their  memories  when  some 

hand 

Strikes  it  in  other  times  and  hopes  unbound 
Rising  see  clear  the  everlasting  land. 


BEFORE  THE  TEARS 

You  looked  as  sad  as  an  eclipsed  moon 
Above  the  sheaves  of  harvest,  and  there  lay 
A  light  lisp  on  your  tongue,  and  very  soon 
The  petals  of  your  deep  blush  fell  away ; 
White  smiles  that  come  with  an  uneasy  grace 
From  inner  sorrow  crossed  your  forehead  fair, 
When  the  wind  passing  took  your  scattered 

hair 
And  flung  it  like  a  brown  shower  in  my  face. 

Tear-fringed  winds  that   fill  the  heart's  low 
sighs 

And  never  break  upon  the  bosom's  pain, 
70 


BEFORE  THE  TEARS  71 

But  blow  unto  the  windows  of  the  eyes 
Their  misty  promises  of  silver  rain, 
Around  your  loud  heart  ever  rose  and  fell. 
I  thought  'twere  better  that  the  tears  should 

come 

And  strike  your  every  feeling  wholly  numb, 
So  thrust  my  hand  in  yours  and  shook  fare- 
well. 


GOD'S   REMEMBRANCE 

THERE  came  a  whisper  from  the  night  to  me 
Like  music  of  the  sea,  a  mighty  breath 
From  out  the  valley's  dewy  mouth,  and  Death 
Shook  his  lean  bones,  and  every  coloured  tree 
Wept  in  the  fog  of  morning.     From  the  town 
Of  nests  among  the  branches  one  old  crow 
With  gaps  upon  his  wings  flew  far  away. 
And,  thinking  of  the  golden  summer  glow, 
I  heard  a  blackbird  whistle  half  his  lay 
Among  the  spinning  leaves  that  slanted  down. 

And  I  who  am  a  thought  of  God's  now  long 

Forgotten  in  His  Mind,  and  desolate 
72 


GOD'S   REMEMBRANCE  73 

With  other  dreams  long  over,  as  a  gate 
Singing  upon  the  wind  the  anvil  song, 
Sang  of  the  Spring  when  first  He  dreamt  of  me 
In  that  old  town  all  hills  and  signs  that  creak : — 
And  He  remembered  me  as  something  far 
In  old  imaginations,  something  weak 
With  distance,  like  a  little  sparking  star 
Drowned  in  the  lavender  of  evening  sea. 


AN  OLD   PAIN 

WHAT  old,  old  pain  is  this  that  bleeds  anew  ? 
What  old  and  wandering  dream  forgotten  long 
Hobbles  back  to  my  mind  ?    With  faces  two, 
Like  Janus  of  old  Rome,  I  look  about, 
And  yet  discover  not  what  ancient  wrong 
Lies  unrequited  still.    No  speck  of  doubt 
Upon  to-morrow's  promise.    Yet  a  pain 
Of  some  dumb  thing  is  on  me,  and  I  feel 
How  men  go  mad,  how  faculties  do  reel 
When  these  old  querns  turn  round  within  the 
brain. 


74 


AN   OLD   PAIN  75 

'Tis  something  to  have  known  one  day  of  joy, 
Now  to  remember  when  the  heart  is  low, 
An  antidote  of  thought  that  will  destroy 
The  asp  bite  of  Regret.    Deep  will  I  drink 
By'n  by  the  purple  cups  that  overflow, 
And  fill  the  shattered  heart's  urn  to  the  brink. 
But    some   are   dead   who   laughed !      Some 

scattered  are 

Around  the  sultry  breadth  of  foreign  zones. 
You,  with  the  warm  clay  wrapt  about  your 

bones, 
Are  nearer  to  me  than  the  live  afar. 

My  heart  has  grown  as  dry  as  an  old  crust, 
Deep  in  book  lumber  and  moth-eaten  wood, 
So  long  it  has  forgot  the  old  love  lust, 
So  long  forgot  the  thing  that  made  youth  dear, 


76  AN   OLD    PAIN 

Two  blue  love  lamps,  a  heart  exceeding  good, 

And  how,  when  first  I  heard  that  voice  ring 

clear 

Among  the  sering  hedges  of  the  plain, 
I  knew  not  which  from  which  beyond  the  corn, 
The  laughter  by  the  callow  twisted  thorn, 
The  jay-thrush  whistling  in  the  haws  for  rain. 

I  hold  the  mind  is  the  imprisoned  soul, 
And  all  our  aspirations  are  its  own 
Struggles  and  strivings  for  a  golden  goal, 
That  wear  us  out  like  snow  men  at  the  thaw. 
And  we  shall  make  our  Heaven  where  we  have 

sown 
Our  purple  longings.    Oh  !  can  the  loved  dead 

draw 
Anear  us  when  we  moan,  or  watching  wait 


AN   OLD   PAIN  77 

Our  coming  in  the  woods  where  first  we  met, 
The  dead  leaves  falling  on  their  wild  hair  wet, 
Their  hands  upon  the  fastenings  of  the  gate  ? 

This  is  the  old,  old  pain  come  home  once  more, 
Bent  down  with  answers  wild  and  very  lame 
For  all  my  delving  in  old  dog-eared  lore 
That  drove  the  Sages  mad.      And  boots  the 

world 
Aught  for  their  wisdom  ?     I  have  asked  them, 

tame, 
And  watched  the  Earth  by  its  own  self  be 

hurled 

Atom  by  atom  into  nothingness, 
Loll  out  of  the  deep  canyons,  drops  of  fire, 
And  kindle  on  the  hills  its  funeral  pyre, 
And  all  we  learn  but  shows  we  know  the  less. 


THE  LOST  ONES 

SOMEWHERE  is  music  from  the  linnets'  bills, 
And  thro'  the  sunny  flowers  the  bee-wings 

drone, 

And  white  bells  of  convolvulus  on  hills 
Of  quiet  May  make  silent  ringing,  blown 
Hither  and  thither  by  the  wind  of  showers, 
And  somewhere  all  the  wandering  birds  have 

flown ; 
And  the  brown  breath  of  Autumn  chills  the 

flowers. 

But  where  are  all  the  loves  of  long  ago  ? 

Oh,  little  twilight  ship  blown  up  the  tide, 
78 


THE   LOST  ONES  79 

Where  are  the  faces  laughing  in  the  glow 
Of  morning  years,  the  lost  ones  scattered  wide  ? 
Give  me  your  hand,  Oh  brother,  let  us  go 
Crying  about  the  dark  for  those  who  died. 


ALL-HALLOWS  EVE 

THE  dreadful  hour  is  sighing  for  a  moon 
To  light  old  lovers  to  the  place  of  tryst, 

And  old  footsteps  from  blessed  acres  soon 
On   old   known   pathways   will   be   lightly 
prest ; 

And  winds  that  went  to  eavesdrop  since  the 

noon, 

Kinking1  at  some  old  tale  told  sweetly  brief, 
Will  give  a  cowslick2  to  the  yarrow  leaf,3 

And  sling  the  round  nut  from  the  hazel  down. 

1  Provincially  a  kind  of  laughter. 

2  A  curl  of  hair  thrown  back  from  the  forehead  :  used  meta- 
phorically here,  and  itself  a  metaphor  taken  from  the  curl  of  a 
cow's  tongue. 

3  Maidens  on  Hallows  Eve  pull  leaves  of  yarrow,  and,  saying 
over  them  certain  words,  put  them  under  their  pillows  and  so 
dream  of  their  true-loves. 

80 


ALL-HALLOWS  EVE  81 

And  there  will  be  old  yarn  balls,1  and  old  spells 

In  broken  lime-kilns,  and  old  eyes  will  peer 
For  constant  lovers  in  old  spidery  wells,2 

And  old  embraces  will  grow  newly  dear. 
And  some  may  meet  old  lovers  in  old  dells, 

And  some  in  doors  ajar  in  towns  light -lorn  ; — 
But  two  will  meet  beneath  a  gnarly  thorn 
Deep  in  the  bosom  of  the  windy  fells. 

Then  when  the  night  slopes  home  and  white- 
faced  day 

Yawns  in  the  east  there  will  be  sad  fare- 
wells ; 

And  many  feet  will  tap  a  lonely  way 
Back  to  the  comfort  of  their  chilly  cells, 

1  They  also  throw  balls  of  yarn  (which  must  be  black)  over 
their  left  shoulders  into  old  lime-kilns,  holding  one  end  and  then 
winding  it  in  till  they  feel  it  somehow  caught,  and  expect  to  see 
in  the  darkness  the  face  of  their  lover. 

2  Also  they  look  for  his  face  in  old  wells. 

F 


82  ALL-HALLOWS   EVE 

And  eyes  will  backward  turn  and  long  to  stay 

Where  love  first  found  them  in  the  clover 
bloom — 

But  one  will  never  seek  the  lonely  tomb, 
And  two  will  linger  at  the  tryst  alway. 


A  MEMORY 

Low  sounds  of  night  that  drip  upon  the  ear, 
The  plumed  lapwing's  cry,  the  curlew's  call, 
Clear  in  the  far  dark  heard,  a  sound  as  drear 
As  raindrops  pelted  from  a  nodding  rush 
To  give  a  white  wink  once  and  broken  fall 
Into  a  deep  dark  pool :  they  pain  the  hush, 
As  if  the  fiery  meteor's  slanting  lance 
Had  found  their  empty  craws  :   they  fill  with 

sound 

The  silence,  with  the  merry  round, 
The  sounding  mazes  of  a  last  year's  dance. 


84  A   MEMORY 

I  thought  to  watch  the  stars  come  spark  by 

spark 

Out  on  the  muffled  night,  and  watch  the  moon 
Go  round  the  full,  and  turn  upon  the  dark, 
And  sharpen  towards  the  new,  and  waiting 

watch 

The  grand  Kaleidoscope  of  midnight  noon 
Change  colours  on  the  dew,  where  high  hills 

notch 

The  low  and  moony  sky.    But  who  dare  cast 
One  brief  hour's  horoscope,  whose  tuned  ear 
Makes  every  sound  the  music  of  last  year  ? 
Whose  hopes  are  built  up  in  the  door  of  Past  ? 

No,  not  more  silent  does  the  spider  stitch 
A  cobweb  on  the  fern,  nor  fogdrops  fall 
On  sheaves  of  harvest  when  the  night  is  rich 


A   MEMORY  85 

With  moonbeams,  than  the  spirits  of  delight 
Walk  the  dark  passages  of  Memory's  hall. 
We  feel  them  not,  but  in  the  wastes  of  night 
We  hear  their  low-voiced  mediums,  and  we  rise 
To  wrestle  old  Regrets,  to  see  old  faces, 
To  meet  and  part  in  old  tryst-trodden  places 
With  breaking  heart,  and  emptying  of  eyes. 

I  feel  the  warm  hand  on  my  shoulder  light, 
I  hear  the  music  of  a  voice  that  words 
The  slow  time  of  the  feet,  I  see  the  white 
Arms  slanting,  and  the  dimples  fold  and  fill.  ... 
I  hear  wing-flutters  of  the  early  birds, 
I  see  the  tide  of  morning  landward  spill, 
The  cloaking  maidens,  hear  the  voice  that  tells 
"  You'd  never  know  "   and   "  Soon   perhaps 
again," 


86  A   MEMORY 

With  white  teeth  biting  down  the  inly  pain, 

Then  sounds  of  going  away  and  sad  farewells. 

A  year  ago  !    It  seems  but  yesterday. 
Yesterday  !     And  a  hundred  years  !     All  one. 
Tis  laid  a  something  finished,  dark,  away, 
To  gather  mould  upon  the  shelves  of  Time. 
What  matters  hours  or  aeons  when  'tis  gone  ? 
And  yet  the  heart  will  dust  it  of  its  grime, 
And  hover  round  it  in  a  silver  spell, 
Be  lost  in  it  and  cry  aloud  in  fear  ; 
And  like  a  lost  soul  in  a  pious  ear, 
Hammer  in  mine  a  never  easy  bell. 


A    SONG 

MY  heart  has  flown  on  wings  to  you,  away 
In  the  lonely  places  where  your  footsteps  lie 
Full  up  of  stars  when  the  short  showers  of  day 
Have  passed  like  ancient  sorrows.    I  would  fly 
To  your  green  solitude  of  woods  to  hear 
You  singing  in  the  sounds  of  leaves  and  birds  ; 
But  I  am  sad  below  the  depth  of  words 
That  nevermore  we  two  shall  draw  anear. 


Had  I  but  wealth  of  land  and  bleating  flocks 
And  barnfuls  of  the  yellow  harvest  yield, 
And  a  large  house  with  climbing  hollyhocks 

And  servant  maidens  singing  in  the  field, 
87 


88  A  SONG 

You'd  love  me  ;  but  I  own  no  roaming  herds, 
My  only  wealth  is  songs  of  love  for  you, 
And  now  that  you  are  lost  I  may  pursue 
A  sad  life  deep  below  the  depth  of  words. 


A   FEAR 

I  ROAMED  the  woods  to-day  and  seemed  to  hear, 
As  Dante  heard,  the  voice  of  suffering  trees. 
The    twisted    roots    seemed    bare    contorted 

knees, 
The  bark  was  full  of  faces  strange  with  fear. 

I  hurried  home  still  wrapt  in  that  dark  spell, 
And  all  the  night  upon  the  world's  great  lie 
I  pondered,  and  a  voice  seemed  whisp'ring 

nigh, 
"  You  died  long  since,  and  all  this  thing  is 

hell !  " 


89 


THE  COMING  POET 

"  Is  it  far  to  the  town  ?  "  said  the  poet, 
As  he  stood  'neath  the  groaning  vane, 
And  the  warm  lights  shimmered  silver 
On  the  skirts  of  the  windy  rain. 
"  There  are  those  who  call  me,"  he  pleaded, 
"  And  I'm  wet  and  travel  sore." 
But  nobody  spoke  from  the  shelter, 
And  he  turned  from  the  bolted  door. 

And  they  wait  in  the  town  for  the  poet 
With  stones  at  the  gates,  and  jeers, 
But  away  on  the  wolds  of  distance 

In  the  blue  of  a  thousand  years 
90 


THE   COMING   POET  91 

He  sleeps  with  the  age  that  knows  him, 
In  the  clay  of  the  unborn,  dead, 
Rest  at  his  weary  insteps, 
Fame  at  his  crumbled  head. 


THE   VISION  ON  THE  BRINK 

TO-NIGHT  when  you  sit  in  the  deep  hours  alone, 
And  from  the  sleeps  you  snatch  wake  quick 
and  feel 

You  hear  my  step  upon  the  threshold-stone, 
My  hand  upon  the  doorway  latchward  steal, 

Be  sure  'tis  but  the  white  winds  of  the  snow, 

For  I  shall  come  no  more. 

And  when  the  candle  in  the  pane  is  wore, 
And  moonbeams  down  the  hill  long  shadows 

throw, 
When  night's  white  eyes  are  in  the  chinky 

door, 

92 


THE   VISION   ON   THE   BRINK  93 

Think  of  a  long  road  in  a  valley  low, 
Think  of  a  wanderer  in  the  distance  far, 
Lost  like  a  voice  among  the  scattered  hills. 

And  when  the  moon  has  gone  and  ocean  spills 
Its  waters  backward  from  the  trysting  bar, 

And  in  dark  furrows  of  the  night  there  tills 
A  jewelled  plough,  and  many  a  falling  star 

Moves  you  to  prayer,  then  will  you  think  of  me 
On  the  long  road  that  will  not  ever  end. 

Jonah  is  hoarse  in  Nineveh — I'd  lend 
My  voice  to  save  the  town — and  hurriedly 

Goes   Abraham   with   murdering   knife,    and 

Ruth 
Is  weary  in  the  corn.  .  .  .  Yet  will  I  stay, 

For  one  flower  blooms  upon  the  rocks  of  truth, 
God  is  in  all  our  hurry  and  delay. 


TO  LORD  DUNSANY 

(ON   HIS   RETURN   FROM   EAST  AFRICA) 

FOR  you  I  knit  these  lines,  and  on  their  ends 
Hang  little  tossing  bells  to  ring  you  home. 
The  music  is  all  cracked,  and  Poesy  tends 
To  richer  blooms  than  mine ;    but  you  who 

roam 

Thro'  coloured  gardens  of  the  highest  muse, 
And  leave  the  door  ajar  sometimes  that  we 
May  steal  small  breathing  things  of  reds  and 

blues 

And  things  of  white  sucked  empty  by  the  bee, 
Will  listen  to  this  bunch  of  bells  from  me. 

94 


TO   LORD    DUNSANY  95 

My  cowslips  ring  you  welcome  to  the  land 
Your  muse  brings  honour  to  in  many  a  tongue, 
Not  only  that  I  long  to  clasp  your  hand, 
But  that  you're  missed  by  poets  who  have  sung 
And  viewed  with  doubt  the  music  of  their  verse 
All  the  long  winter,  for  you  love  to  bring 
The  true  note  in  and  say  the  wise  thing  terse, 
And  show  what  birds  go  lame  upon  a  wing, 
And  where  the  weeds  among  the  flowers  do 
spring. 


ON  AN  OATEN  STRAW 

MY  harp  is  out  of  tune,  and  so  I  take 
An  oaten  straw  some  shepherd  dropped  of  old. 
It  is  the  hour  when  Beauty  doth  awake 
With  trembling  limbs  upon  the  dewy  cold. 
And  shapes  of  green  show  where  the  woolly 

fold 
Slept  in  the  winding  shelter  of  the  brake. 

This  I  will  pipe  for  you,  how  all  the  year 
The  one  I  love  like  Beauty  takes  her  way. 
Wrapped  in  the  wind  of  winter  she  doth  cheer 
The  loud  woods  like  a  sunbeam  of  the  May. 
This  I  will  pipe  for  you  the  whole  blue  day 

Seated  with  Pan^upon  the  mossy  weir. 
96 


EVENING  IN  FEBRUARY 

THE  windy  evening  drops  a  grey 

Old  eyelid  down  across  the  sun, 

The  last  crow  leaves  the  ploughman's  way, 

And  happy  lambs  make  no  more  fun. 

Wild  parsley  buds  beside  my  feet, 

A  doubtful  thrush  makes  hurried  tune, 

The  steeple  in  the  village  street 

Doth  seem  to  pierce  the  twilight  moon. 

I  hear  and  see  those  changing  charms, 
For  all — my  thoughts  are  fixed  upon 
The  hurry  and  the  loud  alarms 

Before  the  fall  of  Babylon. 
G  97 


THE   SISTER 

I  SAW  the  little  quiet  town, 
And  the  whitewashed  gables  on  the  hill, 
And  laughing  children  coming  down 
The  laneway  to  the  mill. 

Wind-blushes  up  their  faces  glowed, 
And  they  were  happy  as  could  be, 
The  wobbling  water  never  flowed 
So  merry  and  so  free. 

One  little  maid  withdrew  aside 
To  pick  a  pebble  from  the  sands. 
Her  golden  hair  was  long  and  wide, 

And  there  were  dimples  on  her  hands. 
98 


THE   SISTER  99 

And  when  I  saw  her  large  blue  eyes, 
What  was  the  pain  that  went  thro'  me  ? 
Why  did  I  think  on  Southern  skies 
And  ships  upon  the  sea  ? 


BEFORE  THE  WAR  OF  COOLEY 

AT  daybreak  Maeve  rose  up  from  where  she 

prayed 

And  took  her  prophetess  across  her  door 
To  gaze  upon  her  hosts.    Tall  spear  and  blade 
Burnished  for  early  battle  dimly  shook 
The  morning's  colours,  and  then  Maeve  said  : 

"  Look 
And  tell  me  how  you  see  them  now." 

And  then 

The  woman  that  was  lean  with  knowledge  said  : 
"  There's  crimson  on  them,  and  there's  drip- 
ping red." 
And  a  tall  soldier  galloped  up  the  glen 


BEFORE  THE   WAR   OF   COOLEY         101 
With  foam  upon  his  boot,  and  halted  there 
Beside  old  Maeve.    She  said,  "  Not  yet,"  and 

turned 

Into  her  blazing  dun,  and  knelt  in  prayer 
One  solemn  hour,  and  once  again  she  came 
And  sought  her  prophetess.    With  voice  that 

mourned, 
"  How  do  you  see  them  now  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  All  lame 

And  broken  in  the  noon."     And  once  again 
The  soldier  stood  before  her. 

"  No,  not  yet." 

Maeve  answered  his  inquiring  look  and  turned 
Once  more  unto  her  prayer,  and  yet  once  more 
"  How  do  you  see  them  now  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  All  wet 
With  storm  rains,  and  all  broken,  and  all  tore 


102    BEFORE  THE  WAR  OF  COOLEY 

With    midnight    wolves."      And    when    the 

soldier  came 
Maeve  said,  "It  is  the  hour."    There  was  a 

flash 

Of  trumpets  in  the  dim,  a  silver  flame 
Of  rising  shields,  loud  words  passed  down  the 

ranks, 

And  twenty  feet  they  saw  the  lances  leap. 
They  passed  the  dun  with  one  short  noisy  dash. 
And  turning  proud  Maeve  gave  the  wise  one 

thanks, 
And  sought  her  chamber  in  the  dun  to  weep. 


LOW-MOON  LAND 

I  OFTEN  look  when  the  moon  is  low 
Thro'  that  other  window  on  the  wall, 
At  a  land  all  beautiful  under  snow, 
Blotted  with  shadows  that  come  and  go 
When  the  winds  rise  up  and  fall. 
And  the  form  of  a  beautiful  maid 
In  the  white  silence  stands, 
And  beckons  me  with  her  hands. 

And  when  the  cares  of  the  day  are  laid, 

Like  sacred  things,  in  the  mart  away, 

I  dream  of  the  low-moon  land  and  the  maid 

Who  will  not  weary  of  waiting,  or  jade 
103 


104  LOW-MOON   LAND 

Of  calling  to  me  for  aye. 

And  I  would  go  if  I  knew  the  sea 

That  lips  the  shore  where  the  moon  is  low, 

For  a  longing  is  on  me  that  will  not  go. 


THE  SORROW  OF  FINDEBAR 

"  WHY  do  you  sorrow,  child  ?    There  is  loud 

cheer 

In  the  wide  halls,  and  poets  red  with  wine 
Tell  of  your  eyebrows  and  your  tresses  long, 
And  pause  to  let  your  royal  mother  hear 
The  brown  bull  low  amid  her  silken  kine. 
And  you  who  are  the  harpstring  and  the  song 
Weep  like  a  memory  born  of  some  old  pain." 

And  Findebar  made  answer,  "  I  have  slain 
More  than  Cuculain's  sword,  for  I  have  been 
The  promised  meed  of  every  warrior  brave 
In  Tain  Bo  Cualigne  wars,  and  I  am  sad 

As  is  the  red  banshee  that  goes  to  keen 
105 


io6  THE   SORROW   OF   FINDEBAR 

Above  the  wet  dark  of  the  deep  brown  grave, 
For  the  warm  loves  that  made  my  memory 
glad." 

And  her  old  nurse  bent  down  and  took  a  wild 
Curl  from  her  eye  and  hung  it  on  her  ear, 
And  said,  "  The  woman  at  the  heavy  quern, 
Who  weeps  that  she  will  never  bring  a  child, 
And  sees  her  sadness  in  the  coming  year, 
Will  roll  up  all  her  beauty  like  a  fern ; 
Not  you,  whose  years  stretch  purple  to  the 
end." 


And  Findebar,  "  Beside  the  broad  blue  bend 
Of  the  slow  river  where  the  dark  banks  slope 
Wide  to  the  woods  sleeps  Ferdia  apart. 


THE   SORROW   OF   FINDEBAR  107 

I  loved  him,  and  then  drove  him  for  pride's 

sake 

To  early  death,  and  now  I  have  no  hope, 
For  mine  is  Maeve's  proud  heart,  AililTs  kind 

heart, 
And  that  is  why  it  pines  and  will  not  break." 


ON  DREAM  WATER 

AND  so,  o'er  many  a  league  of  sea 
We  sang  of  those  we  left  behind. 
Our  ship  split  thro'  the  phosphor  free, 
Her  white  sails  pregnant  with  the  wind, 
And  I  was  wondering  in  my  mind 
How  many  would  remember  me. 

Then  red-edged  dawn  expanded  wide, 

A  stony  foreland  stretched  away, 

And  bowed  capes  gathering  round  the  tide 

Kept  many  a  little  homely  bay. 

O  joy  of  living  there  for  aye, 

O  Soul  so  often  tried  ! 
108 


THE  DEATH  OF  SUALTEM 

AFTER  the  brown  bull  passed  from  Cooley's 

fields 

And  all  Muirevne  was  a  wail  of  pain, 
Sualtem  came  at  evening  thro'  the  slain 
And  heard  a  noise  like  water  rushing  loud, 
A  thunder  like  the  noise  of  mighty  shields. 
And  in  his  dread  he  shouted  :  "  Earth  is  bowed, 
The  heavens  are  split  and  stars  make  war  with 

stars 
And  the  sea  runs  in  fear  !  " 

For  all  his  scars 
He  hastened  to  Dun  Dealgan,  and  there  found 

It  was  his  son,  Cuculain,  making  moan. 
109 


i  ro  THE   DEATH   OF   SUALTEM 

His  hair  was  red  with  blood,  and  he  was  wound 
In  wicker  full  of  grass,  and  a  cold  stone 
Was  on  his  head. 

"  Cuculain,  is  it  so  ?  " 
Sualtem  said,  and  then,  "  My  hair  is  snow, 
My  strength  leaks  thro'  my  wounds,  but  I  will 
die 

Avenging  you." 

And  then  Cuculain  said  : 
"  Not  so,  old  father,  but  take  horse  and  ride 
To  Emain  Macha,  and  tell  Connor  this." 
Sualtem  from  his  red  lips  took  a  kiss, 
And  turned  the  stone  upon  Cuculain's  head. 
The  Lia-Macha  with  a  heavy  sigh 
Ran  up  and  halted  by  his  wounded  side. 


THE   DEATH    OF   SUALTEM  in 

In  Emain  Macha  to  low  lights  and  song 
Connor  was  dreaming  of  the  beauteous  Maeve. 
He  saw  her  as  at  first,  by  Shannon's  wave, 
Her  insteps  in  the  water,  mounds  of  white. 
It  was  in  Spring,  and  music  loud  and  strong 
Rocked  all  the  coloured  woods,  and  the  blue 

height 

Of  heaven  was  round  the  lark,  and  in  his  heart 
There  was  a  pain  of  love. 

Then  with  a  start 

He  wakened  as  a  loud  voice  from  below 
Shouted,   "  The  land  is  robbed,  the  women 

shamed, 

The  children  stolen,  and  Cuculain  low  !  " 
Then  Connor  rose,  his  war-worn  soul  inflamed, 
And  shouted  down  for  Cathbad ;  then  to  greet 
The  messenger  he  hurried  to  the  street. 


112  THE  DEATH  OF  SUALTEM 

And  there  he  saw  Sualtem  shouting  still 

The  message  of  Muirevne  'mid  the  sound 

Of  hurried  bucklings  and  uneasy  horse. 

At  sight  of  him  the  Lia-Macha  wheeled, 

So  that  Sualtem  fell  upon  his  shield, 

And  his  grey  head  came  shouting  to  the  ground. 

They  buried  him  by  moonlight  on  the  hill, 

And  all  about  him  waves  the  heavy  gorse. 


THE  MAID   IN  LOW-MOON  LAND 

I  KNOW  not  where  she  be,  and  yet 
I  see  her  waiting  white  and  tall. 
Her  eyes  are  blue,  her  lips  are  wet, 
And  move  as  tho'  they'd  love  to  call. 
I  see  her  shadow  on  the  wall 
Before  the  changing  moon  has  set. 

She  stands  there  lovely  and  alone 
And  up  her  porch  blue  creepers  swing. 
The  world  she  moves  in  is  her  own, 
To  sun  and  shade  and  hasty  wing. 
And  I  would  wed  her  in  the  Spring, 

But  only  I  sit  here  and  moan. 
H  113 


THE   DEATH   OF   LEAG,   CUCHULAIN'S 
CHARIOTEER 

CONALL 

"  I  ONLY  heard  the  loud  ebb  on  the  sand, 
The  high  ducks  talking  in  the  chilly  sky. 
The  voices  that  you  fancied  floated  by 
Were  wind  notes,  or  the  whisper  on  the  trees. 
But  you  are  still  so  full  of  war's  red  din, 
You  hear  impatient  hoof-beats  up  the  land 
When  the  sea's  changing,  or  a  lisping  breeze 
Is  playing  on  the  waters  of  the  linn." 

LEAG 

"  I  hear  Cuchulain's  voice,  and  Emer's  voice, 

The  Lia  Macha's  neigh,  the  chariot's  wheels, 
114 


THE   DEATH   OF   LEAG  115 

Farther  away  a  bell  bough's  drowsy  peals  ; 
And  sleep  lays  heavy  thumbs  upon  my  eyes. 
I  hear  Cuchulain  sing  above  the  chime 
Of  One  Who  comes  to  make  the  world  rejoice, 
And  comes  again  to  blot  away  the  skies, 
To  wipe  away  the  world  and  roll  up  Time." 

CONALL 

"  In  the  dark  ground  forever  mouth  to  mouth 
They  kiss  thro'  all  the  changes  of  the  world, 
The  grey  sea  fogs  above  them  are  unfurled 
At  evening  when  the  sea  walks  with  the  moon, 
And  peace  is  with  them  in  the  long  cairn  shut. 
You  loved  him  as  the  swallow  loves  the  South, 
And  Love  speaks  with  you  since  the  evening 

put 
Mist  and  white  dews  upon  short  shadowed 

noon." 


Ii6  THE   DEATH   OF    LEAG 

LEAG 

"  Sleep  lays  his  heavy  thumbs  upon  my  eyes, 
Shuts  out  all  sounds  and  shakes  me  at  the 

wrists. 

By  Nanny  water  where  the  salty  mists 
Weep  o'er  Riangabra  let  me  stand  deep 
Beside  my  father.    Sleep  lays  heavy  thumbs 
Upon  my  eyebrows,  and  I  hear  the  sighs 
Of  far  loud  waters,  and  a  troop  that  comes 
With  boughs  of  bells " 

CONALL 

"  They  come  to  you  with  sleep." 


THE   PASSING  OF  CAOILTE 

TWAS  just  before  the  truce  sang  thro'  the  din 
Caoilte,  the  thin  man,  at  the  war's  red  end 
Leaned  from  the  crooked  ranks  and  saw  his 

friend 

Fall  in  the  farther  fury  ;  so  when  truce 
Halted  advancing  spears  the  thin  man  came 
And  bending  by  pale  Oscar  called  his  name  ; 
And  then  he  knew  of  all  who  followed  Finn, . 
He  only  felt  the  cool  of  Gavra's  dews. 

And  Caoilte,  the  thin  man,  went  down  the 
field 

To  where  slow  water  moved  among  the  whins, 
117 


ii8  THE   PASSING   OF   CAOILTE 

And  sat  above  a  pool  of  twinkling  fins 
To  court  old  memories  of  the  Fenian  men, 
Of  how  Finn's  laugh  at  Conan's  tale  of  glee 
Brought  down  the  rowan's  boughs  on  Knoc- 

naree, 

And  how  he  made  swift  comets  with  his  shield 
At  moonlight  in  the  Fomar's  rivered  glen. 

And  Caoilte,  the  thin  man,  was  weary  now, 
And  nodding  in  short  sleeps  of  half  a  dream  : 
There  came  a  golden  barge  down  middle  stream, 
And  a  tall  maiden  coloured  like  a  bird 
Pulled  noiseless  oars,  but  not  a  word  she  said. 
And  Caoilte,  the  thin  man,  raised  up  his  head 
And  took  her  kiss  upon  his  throbbing  brow, 
And  where  they  went  away  what  man  has 
heard  ? 


GROWING  OLD 

WE'LL  fill  a  Provence  bowl  and  pledge  us  deep 
The  memory  of  the  far  ones,  and  between 
The  soothing  pipes,  in  heavy-lidded  sleep, 
Perhaps  we'll  dream  the  things  that  once  have 

been. 

Tis  only  noon  and  still  too  soon  to  die, 
Yet  we  are  growing  old,  my  heart  and  I. 


A  hundred  books  are  ready  in  my  head 

To  open  out  where  Beauty  bent  a  leaf. 

What  do  we  want  with  Beauty  ?    We  are  wed 

Like  ancient  Proserpine  to  dismal  grief. 
119 


120  GROWING   OLD 

And  we  are  changing  with  the  hours  that  fly, 

And  growing  odd  and  old,  my  heart  and  I. 

Across  a  bed  of  bells  the  river  flows, 
And  roses  dawn,  but  not  for  us ;  we  want 
The  new  thing  ever  as  the  old  thing  grows 
Spectral  and  weary  on  the  hills  we  haunt. 
And  that  is  why  we  feast,  and  that  is  why 
We're  growing  odd  and  old,  my  heart  and  I. 


AFTER   MY    LAST    SONG 

WHERE  I  shall  rest  when  my  last  song  is  over 
The  air  is  smelling  like  a  feast  of  wine  ; 
And  purple  breakers  of  the  windy  clover 
Shall  roll  to  cool  this  burning  brow  of  mine ; 
And  there  shall  come  to  me,  when  day  is  told, 
The  peace  of  sleep  when  I  am  grey  and  old. 

I'm  wild  for  wandering  to  the  far-off  places 
Since  one  forsook  me  whom  I  held  most  dear. 
I  want  to  see  new  wonders  and  new  faces 
Beyond  East  seas  ;  but  I  will  win  back  here 
When  my  last  song  is  sung,  and  veins  are  cold 
As  thawing  snow,  and  I  am  grey  and  old. 


122  AFTER  MY   LAST  SONG 

Oh  paining  eyes,  but  not  with  salty  weeping, 
My  heart  is  like  a  sod  in  winter  rain  ; 
Ere  you  will  see  those  baying  waters  leaping 
Like  hungry  hounds  once  more,  how  many  a 

pain 
Shall  heal ;    but  when  my  last  short  song  is 

trolled 
You'll  sleep  here  on  wan  cheeks  grown  thin 

and  old. 


WHHHHH 

A     000032315     4 


